Empire Reborn (Taran Empire Saga Book 1): A Cadicle Space Opera by A.K. DuBoff (jenna bush book club TXT) 📕

core would never be his home. He limited himself to short visits to ensure he never got too comfortable. His responsibilities to the Taran Empire had to come first.

He’d fostered a number of relationships with members of the Aesir over the years, but his most trusted friend was Dahl. The man was over twelve-hundred years old and still looked forty. Such incredible longevity was one of the most striking aspects of the Aesir’s culture. Cellular renewal therapies had extended many of their lives beyond a thousand years, making death a choice when a person felt they had lived a full life rather than being a ticking clock beyond their control.

The life-extending therapy was one of many technologies the Aesir had shared with Wil five years ago in an Archive of their collected knowledge—a gesture of goodwill for improving relations between the branches of Tarans. Wil had held many lengthy discussions with Dahl about how best to share the technologies with the rest of Tarans, but there were significant implications to making such things available to the general public. He hated the pressure of it, literally deciding if something lifesaving on the surface might ultimately do more harm than good. Dahl, in his frustrating ancient-mystic ways, had told Wil ‘he’d know what to do when the time was right’. As if Wil had any clue what that meant. He kept waiting for a grand epiphany, but none had come yet.

So, Wil had held onto the information contained in the Archive within his trusted circle, weighing what to do with it. The most frustrating part was that Wil was certain the Aesir had given him the Archive as a test—much in the way they’d tested him as a young man when he’d gazed into the nexus. They were crafty like that, always gauging and studying. He had no idea what they hoped to see, or if there even was a ‘correct answer’. Stalling his participation in their game remained the best option for now.

Even so, he couldn’t avoid contact completely. The Aesir knew too much and had such valuable insights that he found himself turning to them whenever he felt stuck. And now, with this transdimensional alien threat on the horizon, he needed their opinion more than ever before.

Wil brought up his backdoor communication protocol to connect directly with Dahl, established after the Priesthood’s fall.

The secure subspace link connected after twenty seconds. Dahl smiled serenely at Wil from the holoprojection above his desk. “Hello. I thought you might reach out.”

“Hi, Dahl. Yes, it’s been quite a week.” Wil inclined his head in respectful greeting.

“A great test is coming. We have felt it.”

“This is what Jason saw, isn’t it?”

Dahl nodded. “The truth of the nexus is always revealed in due time.”

“Can you tell me anything about these beings beyond the Rift?”

“No more than what I have already shared about the treaty, I’m afraid. That conflict predates even us.”

Wil smiled. “We found the hardcopy.”

“You did?” Dahl’s eyes widened in a rare show of surprise.

“That Cadicle statue in the Sanctuary? It was sitting right on top of the thing.”

The old Oracle chuckled—a strange sound, coming from him. “I should have known.”

“It didn’t give us a lot, aside from confirmation that the Gate tech is the point of conflict. We’re trying to figure out why.”

“I cannot offer any more insight.”

“I know. That’s not why I called,” Wil said. “Please forgive what may seem like a strange question, but how do the Aesir handle power generation? Do you use PEMs like other Tarans?”

Dahl paused in consideration for a moment, tilting his head slightly as he studied Wil. “We do. It is the most efficient power system known to us.”

“That introduces an interesting logistical question. MPS provides all of the PEMs for the colonized Taran worlds. Do you have a means of replicating their process?”

“We took a large number of PEMs with us when the Aesir originally broke from the Empire.”

“But your numbers were in the thousands then, right? Now, with a hundred million, surely your power demands have grown beyond the original capacity—not to mention system failures.”

Dahl nodded. “Yes, we have needed more to support our expansion. While we have reverse-engineered our equipment that interfaces with the PEMs, so we can manufacture replacement parts, we still acquire the modules themselves from dealers within the Empire when the needs arise.”

The answer shocked Wil more than he was expecting. “So, with all of your advanced tech, you still rely on MPS for your power cores?”

“In short, yes.”

“Because it’s easier that way, or because you’ve been unable to replicate the PEMs?”

The Oracle seemed reluctant to answer him. “We have theoretical models for how the PEMs operate, but we have been unable to produce a module that is as efficient or stable as the MPS versions.”

“So, they really do have proprietary tech.”

“We’ve studied them. The issue is not simply the design, but also the materials. The voydite crystals are the only thing we are aware of with the capability to contain a stable connection to a pocket universe as a perpetual energy source. Everything else we’ve tried either breaks down quickly or is unable to reliably channel the flow of energy.”

“All right. So why don’t you get your own voydite?”

“We haven’t found any. To our knowledge, Monsari has complete control of the sole source of the crystals.”

Wil’s heart sank. “And they’ve been working that mine since before the Aesir broke from the Priesthood? A millennium, or more.”

“Correct.”

“Fok.” The curse slipped out involuntarily, and he gave Dahl an apologetic look. “In your estimation, is their supply finite?”

“I have no direct knowledge to inform such an evaluation.”

“Humor me.”

“Given that we, with all of our knowledge and travels, have not come across any other voydite veins, I can only assume that their creation was under a